Business Issues & Sustainability: A Report on Unilever's Practices

This report examines the business issue of environmental sustainability within Unilever, a multinational consumer goods company. It highlights how Unilever has transformed sustainability into an opportunity by implementing strategies such as upcycling, plant-based commitments, and waste reduction initiatives. The report discusses Unilever's sustainability goals, including cutting food wastage by half by 2025 and increasing plant-based sales. It also reflects on the module's learnings, including adaptation to new technology and workforce planning, and presents a personal development plan focused on improving presentation, time management, and communication skills. The report concludes that Unilever is proactively addressing environmental sustainability, decoupling its environmental impact from its growth, and making bold moves to achieve its sustainability goals.

Business Issues
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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
Environmental sustainability.......................................................................................................3
Reflection upon learning from the module.................................................................................4
Personal Development Plan........................................................................................................5
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................6
References........................................................................................................................................7
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Introduction
Business issue is basically referred to the challenges that are faced by an organisation. Business
problems may prevent a specific business to achieve its goals through execution of strategy.
There can be circumstances wherein the business problems could threaten the survival of the
firm in long run (Hanegraaff and Berkhout, 2019). The business issue of sustainability has been
discussed in case of Unilever in the report. Unilever is a UK based multinational organisation
that deals in consumer goods . The headquarters for Unilever are established at London,
England.
MAIN BODY
Environmental sustainability
Environmental sustainability is referred as the responsibility of conserving the natural
resources along with the protection of global economic systems in order to support a healthy well
being for present as well as future. Environmental sustainability is basically considered as a
challenge by the organisations. Environmental sustainability revolves around the fact in order to
ascertain the various resources that are utilised by the organisation without wastage along with
fuller utilisation as well. The main concept of environmental sustainability revolves around
interaction with the planet in order to maintain the natural resource that can be used by the future
generations as well (Oláh and et.al., 2020).
Environment sustainability is basically a challenge for the organisation that can either be
considered by the organisations as an opportunity to perform better or as a challenge. The
business issue of environmental sustainability is faced by Unilever as well. It has been observed
that Unilever has converted sustainability into an opportunity for the organisation. Unilever as
has been using various tactics of upcycling along with the plant based commitments and further
taking initiatives in order to curtail the waste generation from that will further help in saving
money along with the environment of the business. It has been analysed that the impact of food
business upon the environment has been way depressing. The various studies show that nearly
one third of the food that is produced for human consumption is wasted. It has been analysed that
the food wastes generate approximately 26% global green house gases due to food dumping.
This was observed as an opportunity by the president of the Unilever that can be considered as
an opportunity (Amankwah-Amoah, 2020).
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Unilever had set up its first sustainability goals in the year 2010 and have added in it
since then. The organisation has aimed to cut down the food wastage by half till the year 2025.
Unilever has reacted to the environment sustainability in a positive manner and has set up goals
to increase the plant based sales by 1 billion euros in the coming seven years. The motive behind
this is to reduce the green houses emission from the animal based agriculture that is carried on in
a traditional manner. Unilever has not just focussed upon the solving the sustainability issues
from the manufacturing side of the business . Unilever is focussing upon the perspective of the
consumer as well. The organisation had launched a marketing campaign that asked the
customers to “Make Taste, Not Waste” in the advertisement of Super Bowl that featured Amy
Schumer. In this commercial advertisement, the organisation features various recipes along with
various content in order to encourage the customers to give a thought before dumping the food
(Sarkis and Zhu, 2018).
Unilever has been setting up various ambitious goals that have been honoured for the
commitment for operating in a suitable and appropriate manner. The environmental sustainability
is not considered easy and is a complicated issue that is being tried by Unilever to accomplish it.
Unilever has been performing in the most prominent manner in order to burnish its
sustainability credentials in comparison with the various other consumer production
organisations. Unilever has focussed upon declaration of goals in order to decouple the
environmental impact of the growth of the organisation. The organisation has made bold and
unconventional moves that have seemed heretical to various investors who have focussed upon
the profits in the short term. Also, the organisation has aimed at declining the issuance of
quarterly guidance as the climate change has caused millions of dollars to the organisation and
hence the organisation has developed various plans in order to eliminate deforestation techniques
from the acquired organisation as well as from the supply chains as well (Tost and et.al., 2018).
Reflection upon learning from the module
I have learned various business issues in the module that are being faced by the various
organisations. In my perspective, Business issues is referred to the concept of business
organisations wherein the various long terms problems and challenges are being faced by the
organisation. I have learned in the module that the business issues may prevent a business
organisation from the execution of the various business strategies in order to accomplish goals.
The module has provided with the fact that the business issues can have long term impact upon
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the survival of the organisation as they act as a threat for the operations of the organisation. The
module has helped me in analysing the various business issues that can be faced by an
organisation ( Lai And et.al., 2021). The various issues that have been enlightened to me with the
help of the module are Adaptation to new technology, Environmental sustainability as well as
workforce planning.
In my knowledge, The issue of adaptation of new technology is faced by the organisation
when they experience new developments that have been emerging in a continuous manner. The
technological advancements comprises of various concepts wherein the products tend to change
along with their utilisation as well. In my knowledge, adaptation to the new technology is
referred as a challenge as the organisation is required to gather huge funds to bring technological
advances in the organisation also the employees need to be provide with ample training in order
to work efficiently in order to accomplish goals of the training.
Another business issue that I have studied in the module is sustainability. In my
perspective, Environmental sustainability is referred as the responsibility of conserving the
natural resources along with the protection of global economic systems in order to support a
healthy well being for present as well as future. The main concept of environmental
sustainability revolves around interaction with the planet in order to maintain the natural
resource that can be used by the future generations as well.
Third business issue that I have learned through the module is workforce planning. In my
perspective, workforce planning is referred as the concept of planning the need and requirement
of the work force in the organisation. Work force planning is a process wherein the individual or
organisation is required to predict the right amount of people in the organisation by analysing,
forecasting as well as planning the workforce along with the demand and supply and further the
gaps are assessed in order to determine the targetted talent management (Kroezen, Van
Hoegaerden and Batenburg, 2018).
Personal Development Plan
A personal development plan is the concept which is known as PDP and further it
comprises of the action plan that helps in identifying the goals that an individual wants to
accomplish. I have attached a personal development plan in context of my strengths and
weaknesses and further the plan is to improve and develop the personal goals (Lejeune,
Beausaert and Raemdonck, 2021).
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Skills and competences that need to
be improved
Actions that can be taken to
improve the skills
Time duration
for completion of
the goals
Presentation Skills In order to improve my presentation
skills, I will focus upon the joining
an online course regarding the
Presentation skills.
1 Month
Time management skills Time management skills can be
improved by registering for the
coaching in order to accomplish tasks
in the specified time limit.
6 Months
Communication skills The communication skills can be
improved by me with the help of my
peers and teachers wherein I focus
upon better communication with the
people. It will help me in
communicating my message to others
in an effective manner through oral
and written medium.
9 Months
Conclusion
It can be concluded from the report that the an organisation faces various issues in order
to operate the business. The business issue discussed in the report is environmental sustainability
in aspect of the primary organisation which has taken the issue in a positive manner as an
opportunity. The report further comprises of a reflection in context of the learning from the
module. Further the report also comprises of a Personal development plan in context of academic
research.
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References
Books and Journals
Hanegraaff, M. and Berkhout, J., 2019. More business as usual? Explaining business bias across
issues and institutions in the European Union. Journal of European Public Policy, 26(6),
pp.843-862.
Oláh, J. and et.al., 2020. Impact of Industry 4.0 on environmental
sustainability. Sustainability, 12(11), p.4674.
Amankwah-Amoah, J., 2020. Stepping up and stepping out of COVID-19: New challenges for
environmental sustainability policies in the global airline industry. Journal of Cleaner
Production, 271, p.123000.
Sarkis, J. and Zhu, Q., 2018. Environmental sustainability and production: taking the road less
travelled. International Journal of Production Research, 56(1-2), pp.743-759.
Tost, M. and et.al., 2018. The state of environmental sustainability considerations in
mining. Journal of cleaner production, 182, pp.969-977.
Lejeune, C., Beausaert, S. and Raemdonck, I., 2021. The impact on employees’ job performance
of exercising self-directed learning within personal development plan practice. The
International Journal of Human Resource Management, 32(5), pp.1086-1112.
Lai, M.C. And et.al., 2021. Commentary:‘Camouflaging’in autistic people–reflection on
Fombonne (2020). Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 62(8).
Kroezen, M., Van Hoegaerden, M. and Batenburg, R., 2018. The Joint Action on Health
Workforce Planning and Forecasting: Results of a European programme to improve
health workforce policies. Health Policy, 122(2), pp.87-93.
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